120370-attuned-and-unattuned-endgame-content-page-6
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6 Content Only two steps of the attunement process are remotely related to raid-readiness, adventures and dungeons. The rest better relate to the story contained in the quest and exposing the players to content available at level 50. While it certainly isn't unthinkable that the developers would implement something poorly into the game, the bulk of the evidence points to the fact that the attunement is not designed to test raid-readiness, particularly with the removal of silver dungeons. As for your argument equating mine with the bad design behind pvp ques, they simply don't equate. You haven't addressed the multiple parts of the attunement that are unrelated to raid-readiness and related to the quest and story of the attunement process. I wasn't saying that just because the attunement process doesn't test raid-readiness well, it must have not been designed too, rather I was arguing that the nature of the attunement strongly supports the inference that its main purpose is not to test raid readiness. Inductive reasoning is a logical argument for the liklihood of a conclusion based on the strength of the premises, while not as strong as deductive reasoning, it is definitively more persuasive than assertions without any reasoning behind them. | |} ---- The reason that the multiple parts of the attunement that are unrelated to raid-readiness and related to quest and story haven't been much of a focus here is because they also haven't been a substantial source of contention as an impediment to reaching the raids. Much like the housing quest-line hasn't been a source of contention as a gate for housing, even though it is clearly has a story, is integrated into the world, and unlocks housing upon completion. Why aren't housing enthusiasts howling in outrage about it? Because it's not going to take anybody who can click a glowie any substantial effort to complete. So I will agree with you that there is a story and some stuff that's not particularly onerous to anybody that's part of a typical quest-line that unlocks raids at the end. I would, in all frankness, expect anything that unlocks a substantial component of the game to have such a quest-line. Crafting has it. Runes have it. Adventures have it, and so do dungeons. Housing has it. So you're correct that attunement assuredly includes the goal of giving your character a reason within the context of the world story to go to the raid instance. Were attunement to be removed in its entirety, this function would be lost and need to be replaced. Were parts of attunement to be removed, the story around those parts would need to be modified. I would say this point is not just correct but so patently obvious and so trivially remedied that I have been assuming it didn't need to be explicitly mentioned. My apologies for that assumption. I would also predict that if the game's developers were to drop all parts of attunement that have been the source of numerous complaints about how much grind, how tedious, and how repetitive they are and leave the other stuff in, I daresay nobody would ever complain about how pointless attunement was, ever again. And then they would have a process that is indeed exactly what you claim attunement currently is. A quest line. That exists to unlock raiding. In that case, I would agree with your application of inductive reasoning entirely. There would be no reason to suspect for even one instant that attunement served any purpose at all other than to further the story. So while you are correct that inductive reasoning clearly rejects the idea that the exclusive purpose of attunement is raid-readiness, you've gone completely outside of what inductive reasoning allows you to conclude when you say that the main purpose of attunement can't be raid readiness. In fact, inductive reasoning forces us to stop pretending that attunement is just like every other quest line and forces us to note that compared to all other quest lines the character has experienced up to that point, it's a remarkable outlier in terms of the sheer scale of the number of things and time required to complete them. Inductive reasoning requires us to look at how far out of line those things are with the other questlines and wonder why that should be the case. We would be forced to conclude that whatever the reason is why this particular quest line is so much longer and intensive than the others, that reason must be really important to have the developers retain so much of it in spite of the massive wellspring of criticism the attunement process has received. Otherwise, you're left arguing that a quest-line that is orders of magnitude longer than every other quest-line in the game and the source of numerous complaints is nevertheless still in the game and still filled with numerous considerable time-sinks, representing completion of what amounts to the entirety of the endgame team content, has no substantive explanation for those characteristics. I'm pretty sure Sherlock would disagree with your detective work there. I'm pretty sure he'd look carefully at this statement here: and conclude that what you and I are disagreeing about is whether or not item #3 on your list is accurately described, since it in fact in forces you to not just know the things they need to do to prepare, it makes them actually do those things. According to you, they won't just need to do them in attunement, they'll need to farm them extensively afterwards. That's the point at which the question "was that intentional or not" becomes relevant, as does the question "will they really? Not for raiding to go smoothly, but for raiding to even be possible at all? How sure are you?" And that's where we've reached the limits of what inductive reasoning can tell us. There's clearly a substantive purpose of attunement that CANNOT be accounted for as just "well, it's a quest chain, duh" because it contains so many time sinks and objectives that it's completely out of line with all other quest chains the players have been exposed to up to that point. Whether you want to call that purpose "ensuring raid-readiness" or "ensuring initial completion of things required for raid-readiness that may or may not have been designed with the intention that you'd need to complete them repeatedly" is frankly semantics, unless a developer would care to weigh in and enlighten us all. | |} ---- ---- Assuming that their guild or other group of friends is online all the time, with a sizeable fraction of people equally enthused about becoming attuned in the same few days, sure. Or perhaps if they're in a raiding guild that regularly carries people through the whole thing with their eyes closed, sure. As long as they all share the view put forward in this thread that if you want to beat a boss, you should show up having already read some guide about how to beat him, sure. But if they're in a guild that's not dedicated to raiding, or prefer to actually try to learn content rather than follow the game guide, or aren't chums with a bunch of overgeared players--or aren't willing to be carried--a few days of playtime may well take a few weeks chronologically. That's a long time to sit in a single quest line. I'm going to repeat my point that inductive reasoning forces us to reject the idea that it's just another quest line because there is NO other questline up to that point which even comes close to the scale of attunement. That is a point of evidence that supports my inference. If you'd like to refute it, either provide a questline during the leveling arc that does match the scale of attunement or provide a reason why the size and scale of a questline is simply irrelevant to its purpose. But just saying "Well, _I_ think I'm right" is simply not a rebuttal. And just so we're clear, which content are you now claiming Attunement is a means to funnel "new players" into? Because if the answer isn't consistent with the dev's statements that attunement is to "transition from group content into raids", you're now inserting a purpose that is not consistent with developer commentary. As for the silver to bronze thing, they removed silvers because silvers were always a crappy test for what they were interested in, and the proof of this is that when they lowered the requirements raiding didn't implode on itself under the sheer weight of all those people showing up who just weren't ready. On the contrary, more people are raiding. Not as quickly as the hardcores, and not as well--neither of which should be a surprise to anyone. As for housing, runes, etc., you're now parsing between whether they're integrated into the world vs. the world story. I'm sorry, I don't see why that distinction is even remotely relevant. Because many of us prefer to try and fail than to be told we're not even allowed to try at all. That's the issue. I'm not five years old, and I don't need or want this game to treat me like I am. They let my level 22 character into Malgrave, where the monsters will make short work of him. They don't worry that I'll rage quit, they put up a warning that says "Hey, you're really underlevel for this! Are you sure?" And when I click "yeah, get out of my way", they do. THAT is the way to gate content when your target audience is adults instead of little children. The caretaker can say "You're about to get punted into next week, but if that's what you want, far be it for me to stand between you and a gloriously futile demise." And then you know that you're going in with less than the game thinks you should have and it's up to you to prove the game wrong--or not, as the case may be. But you make the choice, rather than the game making it for you. Because the alternative is to be a condescending *cupcake* to the people who are paying you money to be there. Not a terribly wise move when you need them a lot more than they need you. | |} ---- If people aren't in a guild, or at least a circle, dedicated to raiding, then what what benefit would these players gain from removing attunement? Because they are going to need a dedicated group in order to actually raid. If you are set up with your in game relationships and your out of game commitments to be able to raid, attunement shouldn't be much of a block at all. Necessary? Probably not, but not much of a problem either. I really have no feelings either way about attunement. For me, it was there so I did it. I'm not sure I'd have missed it if it wasn't, but I had fun while doing it (on both my main and my alt) so I'm not complaining. I just don't understand why you want it gone, to be honest. It's just not that much work compared to the work of actual raiding, and it's mostly fun if you like PvE content. One question I do have- is your whole thing about limiting gear used in attunement runs an actual desire you have to implement, or is it just something you are coming up with to make a point about why attunement shouldn't exist? Because if you really do want this, please understand that no one else does and it would make the game a lot less fun for a lot more people, and it would benefit no one. If it's the latter, I think sticking to your logical arguments is better than pushing for an addition to the game you don't actually want. | |} ---- ---- Your comment is a bit selfish. What about the other 19 people times you'd be wasting (or any other just-hit-50-want-to-raid-NOW) with your try? Not only is planning raids and getting the people together very time consuming, they are also rather unforgivable and a death of one person can cause a wipe of all 20 - wasted time for all. Because that is what you are saying - you want no attunement to put a stop for, a fresh or not 50, entering the raid. Yes, some people might pull it off, but most wont and that there is hours of wasted time on 20 (or 40) people. Teleporting to Malgrave and getting one-shotted there you can practice all day long. On your own. Do it for a week. Try out all the maps while you're at it! Noone will be bothered. So you cannot really compare THAT to other people's time wasted in raids if all the possible 50s are allowed to enter. Imo, like it or not, most attunement steps do help people to get ready for raids, intended for that or not. Not only gear-wise but also how to manage in a larger group of players than just yourself, coordinate yourselves and play your parts or to get gold. And yes, you are a 5-year-old, beating and crying and not agreeing with anything or anyone because you want to touch that hot glass of milk yourself and not trusting others saying that you'll get burned. Grow up and then you'll know better. PS: If it would be a "normal" mmo that needs less skill, my opinion about attunement would be different. But as the game is rather hard and I have seen people facerolling even in advetures as 50s then there must be some brick wall built to not let those people in the raids til they learn if not for other's people sake, then for the sake of their own. Yes, for skilled players it will also be a wall, but something they can climb. | |} ---- And that is the attitude that keeps attunement how it is. What on earth makes players here think that nobody should even be allowed to TRY to raid unless they're in a raiding guild dedicated to the activity? It's not OK for people to want to scrape together enough friends who are all interested in trying it when they can? To see if they even WANT to get serious about it? There's a smooth continuum of player interests in raiding, guild sizes, and group coordinations, it doesn't break down into "committed" and "flatly disinterested". And this should be completely obvious to everyone. The more roadblocks you put up, the more people who might otherwise be interested who won't even bother finding out; the more people who would make it through a less comprehensive attunement grind will fail to make it through this one; the more people who would do it in a week instead take two weeks; the more people who would do it in two weeks take a month. And at every step of the way, if just a few of their friends say "meh, not worth my time to bother", the whole thing grinds to a stop until they find replacements or decide to just quit themselves. And when they do that in a game that has an endgame that is carefully and deliberately designed to make it clear that the PvE endgame IS an almost entirely vertical progression from solo<<